Poems by Mercedes Lawry

Winter Arrangement

Tributaries of bare trees against a dun sky,
frost crusted on fallen leaves, silvering
the moss and limp weeds. This place
as every place. We locate ourselves
as the pilgrim mind wanders. I follow
the sky from various windows as if wisdom
might etch itself on the gray slate, vivid
and fulfilling in the January slog.
I cannot fool myself. Only linger in the what-if
where toothed creatures wait to cause wreckage.

Relief

Everything I meant to read but didn’t,
in piles around my deathbed,
imagined moment where there’s no fear,
just relief. I am about to become
light itself or darkness, either way
free by my own definition, which is,
admittedly, elastic and though at times
I think I could read myself to death,
happily, paragraphs like plump clouds,
sentences like the soft belly of a creature
that loves me with no regrets,
the last page will be out of reach and blurry,
as if October rain had drummed it
through a long, brittle night.

Oh my, the silence

and the early dark,
late October like a cramp,
subtle reminder you’re
a prisoner of flesh, lucky
or not today, unknown
tomorrow, the sky still swallowed
by the density of gray